Do snails have feelings?

Help. I haven't done any of this gardening mullarky before - DH was the outside wallah. Not that he was exactly gripped by it - we only ever had roses and lavender (I do not say "only" in a derogatory way, I do love both roses and lavender), and geraniums if we had managed to get to the flower market in Hackney at the right time. The garden I have inherited with the house I have moved to has obviously been loved but has become neglected. I'd thought to leave it for this year as I cannot afford the time or expense to do anything about it, and see what came up. But I couldn't leave it altogether so am trying to do a bit here and there and am loving it. I found a chimney stack thing and filled it with soil (the soil is just heavenly, rich and mixed with the sand that blows up all the time from the shore, so easy to dig into) and planted a french lavender in DH's memory. It has come on really well, but I noticed today that the nasturtiums, which are rampant everywhere and were trailing prettily down the chimney stack sides, seemed to be strangling the lavender - it was starting to droop. So I decided to sacrifice the nasturtiums. When I started poking around to pull them out I discovered a positive colony of snails - there were about two dozen of them, all sizes, huddled up together. I know (I think) that snails eat veggies and I have planted quite a few Jamie Oliver things that DS bought me for Mother's Day. So, ruthless, I pulled all these snails off the inside of the inside of the chimney stack and put them in a bucket.
I feel like Attila the Hun.
What do I do with them?